Bad Investment

Page 1, Spending hard earned milions of money on competitive exams for admission into professional colleges in India is a total waste; it is better spent elsewhere like on badly needed infra-stucture projects the country needs.

Bad Investment

Subba Rao

In India, admissions at professional colleges in the field of medicine and engineering went up sky high. The numbers were mind boggling. This is good news. Now the schools to prep the students for standardized tests for admission into professional colleges turned into a big business, in one southern state it is around 100 million dollar business. This is lot of money particularly in a country like India with low per capita income and poverty. This money is not coming out of government treasury, it all coming straight from the parents’ pocket. The parents eager to help their kids to get good ranking in qualifying tests spend their hard earned money amounting to millions.

The teaching centers train the students to cram test material to get good scores. Students were not academically benefited at all through expanding their original talent or critical thinking. If the professional colleges choose to ignore the standardized test scores and use the high school scores as the basis for admission, the quality of students admitting into their school won’t change a bit. Data show that high school grades are as good indicators as scores in standardized tests in evaluating the students’ academic ability. The standardized tests instituted in recent past as an additional tool to evaluate the high school students is nothing short of a business plan to make money.

The argument that not all high school scores are equal and standardized tests would level the field sounds rational but in realty there is no end to what extent or level we can standardize the evaluations. The curriculum at the professional and graduate schools shall automatically filter out the students not suitable to the program. Even if some students beat the system to graduate they filter out at the work place anyway. History tells that the standardized test score before the admission has no bearing on the quality of student at the end of the graduation. The Money spent in millions by the parents is a total waste. I don’t get it.

100 million dollars currently spent at the training schools are better spent elsewhere say in buying bonds to finance projects to improve basic requirements for healthy living. The raw sewer in many towns and cities in India is not treated at all. The sewer is allowed to seep into the ground underneath each house through septic tank system. The contaminated rain water and raw sewer in open drains does not flow into city waste water or sewage treatment plants instead it flows into small ponds to dry up in hot weather leaving highly contaminated residue to rot openly. Every street corner is a garbage dump site; people and vehicles either travel on or around the garbage heaps. None of the educated folks ask “Where the hell the raw sewer is flowing into?” I don’t get it.

Step outside the house only to breath toxic air full of emissions from vehicles and factory chimneys. The smog is so thick at road level as if toxic cloud descended from the sky above as if the hell broke loose. Smoke from the open air burning of trash adds to the misery. Wearing simple dusk masks do no good in such a toxic environment.

The power supply at homes is spotty at best with constant power cuts every day. The country has chronic power shortage. Huge diesel power generators without high stacks at commercial buildings release emissions like crazy onto the streets. The parents shall spend their hard earned money on installing solar panels on their homes. The money spent for scoring good rankings is better spent at home on the roof

The college owners are the beneficiaries in the whole scheme. Over compensated teaching instructors were like drill masters repeating the drill in the classroom again and again. I don’t get it. Give me a break.